When I woke up this morning, I noticed that my Wii was doing that weird Close Encounters of the Third Kind blue glowing thing. For the uninitiated, this meant that there was a message waiting.

I thought to myself, "Hooray! My friends are stopping in again!" Alas, it was not a friend. It was Nintendo. And although Nintendo is not an enemy, it just wasn't the same.

Now, had the message been that Goldeneye 007 was being added to the Virtual Console shop, Nintendo would quickly rise to the rank of consigliere. But alas, this was not the message.

Someday, my pet. Someday... 

No, Nintendo just wanted to let me know that I can now buy Virtual Console games for people on my friend list (kind of cool, actually, but could be cooler if I could buy people Goldeneye) and that the Photo Channel has been updated.

Here's the text from the message (and Wii friends, send a man some love people!):

Dear Nintendo Customer,

We are pleased to announce that the following two new features have been added to the Wii console: (1) Wii Gifting in the Wii Shop Channel and (2) and update to the Photo Channel. 

The Wii Gifting feature allows you to buy games for your friends and family and to gift such games to them right from your Wii Shop Channell. To learn how to use this new feature, go to http://nintendo.com/wii/channels.

In addition to the Wii Gifting feature, the Photo Channel has been updated to allow you to: (1) paste your favorite picture on the Photo Channel icon displaed on the Wii Menu and (2) play AAC-format music files while viewing slide shows.

[How to use this.]
The new Photo Channel can be downloaded from the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop Channel at no cost. Please note that if the Photo Channel you are currently using is the "Photo Channel 1.1" version, you will not need to download this new version.

To verify whether or not you are currently using Photo Channel 1.1, just point your Wii Remote on the Photo Channel icon on the Wii Menu screen. The screen will display "Photo Channel 1.1" if that is the version you are using.

In order to download the updated Photo Channel, you'll first need to update your Wii Shop Channel. Press the "Update" button located on the lower-right side of the screen to start the update.

-Nintendo